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Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

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Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#151

Post by modo_mario »

ummonk wrote: post #52
zmgsabst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we could do three good things at once: - switch to this better method of farming - end the corporate oligarchy controlling food by having smaller farms - shift people out of net negative “services” into farming I don’t see the downfall of industrial farming as a bad thing — they’re a whole problem all on their own (including the recent push to take away family farms from the Dutch).

Because the Great Leap Forward was such a smashing success, we need to do it again?

How does this relate to the great leap forward? I don't think he's arguing that thre be some kind of mass mobilization towards agriculture (as opposed to metals smelting or the like)

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#152

Post by zmgsabst »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #82
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the West has such ossified systems. If you propose any systemic change, people dont actually evaluate the suggestion on it's merits. They just go China/communism!

The proposition is to expropriate landowners (sorry the “corporate oligarchy”), force people to move to farming and rationalise production methods with a top-down approach. The comparaison to the Great Leap Forward is not far fetched. I think it’s legitimate to point to disastrous precedent when people suggest things.

No it wasn’t - you’re putting words in my mouth to justify a poor comparison.

All I said was that we should change the standards around farming to stop providing legal support to mega farms (eg the current government policy that’s failing) and allow the natural outcome of more labor intensive farming to happen — which through shifting the incentives and existing legal framework, would have people shift back into farming.

The person I was responding to said more labor intensive farming would be bad — I pointed out that the market effect of that change would actually be positive in several ways.

Comparing a change to the legal framework which leads to a change in market dynamics that’s positive isn’t anything like the Great Leap Forward.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#153

Post by immibis »

anonzzzies wrote: post #85
tfourb wrote: post #2

From the abstract: "We find that agricultural intensification, in particular pesticides and fertiliser use, is the main pressure for most bird population declines, especially for invertebrate feeders. Responses to changes in forest cover, urbanisation and temperature are more species-specific. Specifically, forest cover is associated with a positive effect and growing urbanisation with a negative effect on population…

Here forests and trees in general are all cut so the farmers can do farming. Considering the amount of land that is changing into a deserts (which negatively affects the farmers too), it's a bit strange they keep cutting forest cover instead of subsidising maintaining and replanting.

One is substantially cheaper than the other. That means more profit. And if you don't maximize profit, you are the weakest firm, goodbye.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#154

Post by immibis »

AbsoluteCabbage wrote: post #120

Is “farming to blame”, or is farming being blamed to suit an agenda? Don’t push ridiculous articles like this with zero factual evidence. What we put out to the world has real effects- especially dangerous rhetoric like this that incites the left side of the Bell curve into a frenzy.

The agenda is preventing the extinction of human life.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#155

Post by zmgsabst »

flagrant_taco wrote: post #143
zmgsabst wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Maybe we could do three good things at once: - switch to this better method of farming - end the corporate oligarchy controlling food by having smaller farms - shift people out of net negative “services” into farming I don’t see the downfall of industrial farming as a bad thing — they’re a whole problem all on their own (including the recent push to take away family farms from the Dutch).

How might this be implemented without ceasing am even more powerful government along the way? The changes sounds reasonable enough but it sounds like it's take the government to force new farming methods on us, break up corporations, and force people to leave their current jobs and lives to work land elsewhere.

Vote with your wallet.

I buy from small family farms who use better methods — and you can too.

I also didn’t say anything about “break up corporations” nor “force people to leave their current jobs”; I only said that it’s fine if we make a pivot that’s more labor intensive… we can use people rather than robots.

Vote with your wallet for farms that use permaculture or similar; the market will naturally shift in response to the changed incentives and capable people will fill the void, through the personal pursuit of profits.

We could also, eg, preference small farms or permaculture in existing government subsidy programs.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#156

Post by MichaelZuo »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #147

Probably the most exciting future technology is precision fermentation. We use massive amounts of land to grow monocultures because that's the cheapest way to produce food. We're in a conundrum: more expensive food would cause mass suffering. OTOH, our current food production methods are destructive, and cause mass suffering. A cheaper method to produce food that uses a lot less land and resources would be a game cha…

If it's cheaper for more nutritious food, and every other aspect remains the same or better, then you won't need to convince anyone, it'll sell itself.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#157

Post by ClumsyPilot »

mschuster91 wrote: post #128
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the entire talk of destruction of rain forests comes across as a little hypocritical when it's coming from countries with like 6% forest cover. I was up in scottish highlands recently and many hills are bold like someone just shaved them. Looks weired. The only solution O see is to habe a global forestly fund, so developing countries can get paid but dont have to destroy forests.

> The only solution O see is to habe a global forestly fund, so developing countries can get paid but dont have to destroy forests. That just incentivizes scammers and fraud, just like many of the "CO2 offset certificates" based on paying people not destroying forests they wouldn't have destroyed anyway [1]. [1] https://www.zeit.de/wirtschaft/2023-01/co2-certificates-frau...

I am aware of CO2 market being a scam, this is very diffetent to what I propposed.

CO2 market depends on assertations of intent, and on efficacy, both of which are easy to forge and hard to prove.

Forestry found is much simpler. Everyone put money into a pot, say. we hVe 100 billion dollars.

The. yoy get data from satellite, and calculate square miles of forest.

Then you divide the pot by square miles of forest.

Then countries det paid based on how many square miles are in their borders.

There is not potential for fraud - the calculation is sinple and idiotproof. You might debate if some marginal land is forest or not, but for 90% of it you can clearly see what it is from space.

You can also have debate about how muhch should be put into the pot, and by whom.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#158

Post by WastingMyTime89 »

zmgsabst wrote: post #152
WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #82

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The proposition is to expropriate landowners (sorry the “corporate oligarchy”), force people to move to farming and rationalise production methods with a top-down approach. The comparaison to the Great Leap Forward is not far fetched. I think it’s legitimate to point to disastrous precedent when people suggest things.

No it wasn’t - you’re putting words in my mouth to justify a poor comparison. All I said was that we should change the standards around farming to stop providing legal support to mega farms (eg the current government policy that’s failing) and allow the natural outcome of more labor intensive farming to happen — which through shifting the incentives and existing legal framework, would have people shift back into farm…

> All I said was that we should change the standards around farming to stop providing legal support to mega farms (eg the current government policy that’s failing) and allow the natural outcome of more labor intensive farming to happen — which through shifting the incentives and existing legal framework, would have people shift back into farming.

The natural outcome is that production is shifted to countries with laxer laws and cheaper cost of labour not that people shift back into farming. Farming is not economically viable on a small scale without subsidies in Europe.

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#159

Post by zmgsabst »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #158
zmgsabst wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No it wasn’t - you’re putting words in my mouth to justify a poor comparison. All I said was that we should change the standards around farming to stop providing legal support to mega farms (eg the current government policy that’s failing) and allow the natural outcome of more labor intensive farming to happen — which through shifting the incentives and existing legal framework, would have people shift back into farm…

> All I said was that we should change the standards around farming to stop providing legal support to mega farms (eg the current government policy that’s failing) and allow the natural outcome of more labor intensive farming to happen — which through shifting the incentives and existing legal framework, would have people shift back into farming. The natural outcome is that production is shifted to countries with lax…

Mega farms already receive subsidies — why is that fine, but subsidizing a less damaging method not?

Also, that’s what tariffs are for: food security is national security.

Finally, the Dutch farmers currently having their farms seized seemed to be doing fine — except for political interference in the name of environmentalism. Why is that intervention fine, but supporting small farmers rather than mega corporations not?

Re: Farmland practices are driving bird population decline across Europe

#160

Post by modo_mario »

WastingMyTime89 wrote: post #82
ClumsyPilot wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is why the West has such ossified systems. If you propose any systemic change, people dont actually evaluate the suggestion on it's merits. They just go China/communism!

The proposition is to expropriate landowners (sorry the “corporate oligarchy”), force people to move to farming and rationalise production methods with a top-down approach. The comparaison to the Great Leap Forward is not far fetched. I think it’s legitimate to point to disastrous precedent when people suggest things.

Was that what was proposed or is that just the least charitable interpretation one can think of?

Nobody mentioned expropriating. One can put down incentives that benefit the desired outcome in the same way we've been doing in many different scenarios.

Also I didn't see any call for some kind of localized mass mobilizations towards agriculture in the way the great leap forward might have seen with things like iron smelting & the like. Agricultures share of employment is sub 5% in most of the west. A quick look at a graph for the US makes me think sub 2%

If you push the industry towards these more sustainable tho more labour incentive practices chances are it'll be a slow change with an increase in workers in agriculture that isn't going to radically change society. It's not like half a century ago in the 60's the west was in some kind of agriculture dominant feudal age despite there being even 3-4 times as many workers in agriculture if not more depending on where you look.

And of course we're forgetting technology, options for a middleground, etc in all this.

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